Tag: Chinese food

The garden has started supplying us with giant bowls of lettuce, more beans than we know what to do with, crunchy green cabbages, baskets full of sugar snap peas, and the first zucchini of the summer. That means two things around here — salads and stir fries.

cabbage, zucchini, and peas are all from our garden

Couple days ago I wanted to do a stir fry with chicken as a the main dish, rather than stir fry as a side, but didn’t feel like something as sweet as my Sesame Stir Fry or a recipe which required quite so much time/effort to cook the chicken as the Simple Chicken Stir Fry. So I made something up. It’s an easy recipe — just throw the chicken and marinade ingredients together, mix up some sauce, cook the chicken, add vegetables, and then pour the sauce on at the last minute. I ground some peppercorns over it to make it look pretty and so I could call it pepper chicken. Enjoy!

Heat oil in a wok or deep skillet over medium-high heat. Add chicken and stir fry until cooked through. Add chopped vegetables and stir fry until they are tender but not so soft they become mushy. Add sauce, and stir (it will thicken quickly). Removed from heat and grind peppercorns over the stir-fry. Serve with rice.

start stirring as soon as you add the sauce to avoid lumps as it thickens.

My younger brother just tested up from his junior black belt to adult-level black belt in Tae Kwon Do, and these are the cookies he wanted to celebrate with. This recipe makes a huge batch of cookies — between 5 and 6 dozen — so there’s more than enough to enjoy here and to send with him to Tae Kwon Do class tomorrow.

Mix sugar and butter in a large bowl with a wooden spoon. Stir in eggs, one at a time. Add water and vanilla, then stir to thoroughly combine.

Stir in salt, baking powder, and soda. Mix in flour, then add oats. Dough can be refrigerated, or baked immediately. Roll dough into balls and place on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake at 350°F for 8 to 10 minutes.

I found this easy, attractive chicken stir fry recipe on Pinterest. The original recipe, from Edible Mosaic, was for a Cabbage, Carrot, and Chicken Stir-fry that served two. I trippled the recipe for our family of 5, thinking my teenage brother would eat enough for two people. Turns out I was wrong — we had enough to feed 6 or 7 people. The left-overs were a great breakfast, though!

Whisk together marinade ingredients. Stir in the chicken and let it marinade for 5 to 10 minutes. Remove the chicken from the marinade, and reserve the remaining marinade for later use. Toss chicken with the tapioca starch.

putting it all together

Add the remaining 2 tablespoons of sesame oil to a wok or large skillet over high heat. Once the oil is hot, turn heat down to medium-high. Cook chicken in small batches in a single layer until browned, about 2 minutes on each side. Add more oil about halfway through cooking the chicken.

Once all the chicken is cooked, add the cabbage, carrot, reserved marinade, and 3/4 cup water to the wok or skillet. Scrape up any brown bits from the bottom of the skillet and toss vegetables with a wooden spoon. Cook for 3 to 5 minutes or until the veggies are crisp-tender, stirring frequently.

Turn off heat and add the chicken. Garnish with the green onion, more sesame seeds, and slivered almonds if desired. Serve over steamed rice.

I have a confession to make: for many years I made chicken fried rice using a boxed dinner because I was intimidated by this dish. It seemed like it would be so simple, but when I tried one recipe I found online it was a soggy mess that tasted like licorice because of the Chinese five-spice. Just recently, I finally found another recipe to try (this one a simple side-dish), and I expanded it into this chicken fried rice. The secret to avoiding sogginess is to use rice that has been sitting in the refrigerator for a day or so, which gives it a chance to cool and dry-out a little. I still don’t feel I’ve quite mastered the art of keeping the egg on only one side of the skillet while scrambling it, but at least when we want fried rice we’re not eating dinner out of a box any more.

Add 3 Tablespoons sesame oil to the wok and heat over medium heat. Add the peas, carrots, onion, and garlic. Stir-fry until tender. Push the mixture off to one side, then pour eggs on the other side of the skillet and stir-fry until scrambled.

We very nearly had a crisis last night. I was sitting down to type up this recipe so I could schedule it for this morning when I realized I couldn’t find my notes. This is one of my original recipes, so it didn’t exist anywhere except wherever it was I put it. As you can see, I finally located it in the back of a pink notebook that I’d been taking notes in for something else.

One of my favorite things to cook is Chinese food. Ever since I was old enough eat things that didn’t come out of a baby food jar, my parents have been taking me to their favorite Chinese restaurants trying to teach me to love Chinese food. I guess it worked, since I’m now known around our house as “the red-headed Chinese chef.” I keep hearing how terrible soy sauce it for you, though, and I’ve been wondering if there’s a way to decrease the amount of soy sauce in our food without sacrificing flavor.

This recipe is the result of that experiment. Before this, I’d cut the amount of soy sauce in some dishes by up to half (adding rice wine to make up the difference), but this is the first time I’ve tried a full stir-fry without any soy sauce. The results were encouraging. It was a nice white sauce, similar to Moo Goo Gai Pan. Be sure not to leave out the salt — without the sodium in soy sauce it’s bland until the salt is added.

Soy Sauce-Free Stir Fry Chicken

Note: if you’re going to serve this with long-grain brown rice, start it cooking before you put the chicken in the marinade. It usually takes about 45 minutes to cook.

Cooking the chicken

Marinade

1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts

1/2 teaspoon fresh, grated ginger

1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes

1 tablespoon rice wine

Cut the chicken into bite-sized cubes. Mix in the marinade ingredients in a bowl and add chicken. Marinate for 15 to 20 minutes.

Sauce

Decided to try some of this bean flour I had in the cupboard instead of my usual tapioca starch. It worked pretty well

1 cup chicken broth

2 teaspoons fresh, grated ginger

2 tablespoons flour or starch

1 tablespoon sesame oil

1 tablespoon rice wine

1 tablespoon honey

1/4 teaspoon salt

Whisk the sauce ingredients in a medium bowl. Set aside. Prepare desired vegetables. I used carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, and green onions. Other suggestions include bamboo shoots, zucchini, and button mushrooms.

Let the sauce bubble until tit thickens a little

Heat 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil in a wok or large skillet over medium-high heat. Cook chicken until cooked through (no pink). Add vegetables and stir fry until just tender (they should still be a little crunchy if you bite into one). Chicken juices should be evaporated by now. Add sauce and bring it to boil. Stir while it bubbles and thickens, about 3 minutes. Serve over rice.

I’ve finally decided to write this recipe down (partly so I can remember how to make it, and partly so I can share it here). I like to serve it with salad and my Oriental Salad Dressing. In fact, this is what my brother requested for his birthday lunch this week. I wonder how many other 16-year-old boys want an artisan salad for their birthday?

Asian Chicken Marinade

Mix ingredients in gallon-size, plastic zip-lock bag. Add 1-½ pounds chicken breast tenders and seal the bag. Turn to coat chicken. Let rest in the marinade for 30 minutes. Place chicken in a 13x9x2-inch baking pan. Bake at 350°F for 20-30 minutes, until chicken is cooked through and no longer pink.